Malaysia palm oil:
Slow demand but no serious defaults for exporters
Malaysian palm oil exporters are not facing a severe default on contracts despite the slow demand for the commodity over the past few months, national news agency Bernama quoted the Malaysia's Palm Oil Refiners Association as saying Monday.

Its acting chairman, Yong Chin Fatt, said it was true that some players faced defaults but the situation was not as massive as reported recently.

It was reported that buyers from China and India had cancelled or renegotiated around 800,000 to one million tonnes of palm oil deals over the past few weeks with declining prices.

"In places like India or China, most of them are quite established players. So, the default should not be that massive," he told reporters on the sidelines of the Second International Palm Oil Trade Fair and Seminar 2008 in Kuala Lumpur Monday.

He pointed out that the news report might have been highlighted intentionally by certain parties to distress the market.

It is believed that the default level only hovered around 40,000 tonnes for China and India respectively.

To cope with the change of pricing in the market, he said some sellers were helping the buyers by deferring contracts as wel as discounting or selling new ones at current or more competitive prices.